


Horror on the Horcrux Hunt

by aryasark



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Badass Dumbledore, Badass Harry, Gen, badass Balrog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23835235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryasark/pseuds/aryasark
Summary: Trouble seems to find Harry. Dumbledore really should have heeded that and gone solo on the cave Horcrux mission - maybe then it wouldn't have involved facing literal demons. A Harry Potter - Lord of the Rings / Silmarillion crossover. Will also be posted on ffnet.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	1. The beginning

The Second Music was to be grander than the first. Those were his words, and they were destiny.

Grand could only be wrought with _all_ his creation, _all_ his will. And only the Afterborn reflected _all_ his creation, _all_ his will. For only the Afterborn had shades of _all_ his thought children. Of Manwë, Ulmo, Aulë, Oromë, Mandos, Irmo and Tulkas. And of Melkor, _especially_ Melkor. For it was off Melkor's thought (his other thought children would later call it _malice_ )had the ideals of full self-reliance, full independence and true free will emerged. It was Melkor who had woven them into the First Music, via his third attempted course correction. And he, Eru, had not erased those ideals, but taken them forward to produce beauty. Beauty and grandness could be wrought out of _everything_ , even Melkor's basest thoughts.

But the fact remained. Only the Afterborn reflected all of his will. The future of the world, and the even grander Second Music, belonged to the Afterborn.

As the last of the halflings drew his last breath, as the last of the elves grew weary with life after living for a hundred thousand years, and long after the last of the tree shepherds roamed the wild, Man the Horsemaster and the now _his_ world were finally ready for the last triad of the First Music.

With naught a thought, Eru changed the fashion of the world for the second time.

.

.

.

.

And with that, the world became amenable to scientific reasoning, to independence, to causality. Through _retroactive continuity_. 

It also led to the Copernican Principle of Mediocrity, for the Afterborn must believe in his independence and self-reliance. And also his relative insignificance, as envisioned by Melkor himself.

All the remnant magic in the world was now concentrated in few creatures. Chief among them were some select Afterborn, who would later choose to isolate themselves, due to an innate but inexplicable urge of letting the others, the ones without the gift of magic, be on their own. Be _independent_.

.

.

It moved the remnants of the Mines of Moria deep underground, where neither the most scientifically oriented nor the most magically powerful Afterborns would ever venture.

.

.

And it also brought the end of the Endless Stair to a smallish cave, situated on an oceanic rock near the island that would later become known as Great Britain. A cave that would later contain an underground donut-shaped lake. A cave that later would be used by one Tom Riddle to hide one of his soul fragments and be guarded by animated corpses.

A cave that would later be discovered by a black-haired youth with the help of his servant, to his ultimate and untimely doom.

.

.

A cave that would later become the abode of a demon of the ancient world, thought to have been killed in an apocalyptic battle by the Maia Olorin, but alive nonetheless after all the time.

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Location: the deceptive entrance of a smallish cave, situated on an oceanic rock near the island known as Great Britain.

_"This is the place,” said Dumbledore._  
_“How can you tell?” Harry spoke in a whisper._  
_“It has known magic,” said Dumbledore simply._

The headmaster proceeded to give a blood sacrifice and walked straight into the now open cave, closely followed by Harry. But before he could even come to the same level as the ominous, black lake, he halted suddenly. So suddenly that Harry bumped into him.

"Sorry Harry," Dumbledore muttered distractedly. He then did something very unexpected - he sniffed the air. "What has Tom _done_ here?"

Harry thought he detected a hint of worry in the headmaster's voice. "Sir? What is it?"

"I said earlier that this place has known magic, Harry. That it certainly has. But the more I experience it, I feel a sense of unfamiliarity. At least a part of it feels completely foreign, and, well, _dark_ , for the lack of a better word. But I am familiar with Tom's magic, and I can say with surety that whatever devilry lies within this cave and causing this unfamiliar sensation never came from Tom's wand."

Harry shifted uneasily. Even he could feel it - a sense of distant dread. All his danger honed instincts told him to turn back, to lock the cave again and never return there. But true to his Gryffindor courage, Harry ignored the urge.

Dumbledore resumed walking forward, now very wary with his wand held in a duel stance and radiating so much light that it seemed to reach even the farthest edge of the lake, one beyond the island in the midst.

20 MINUTES LATER

_Slashing at the air with his wand, Harry yelled, “Sectumsempra! SECTUMSEMPRA!”_

But even though deep gashes appeared on their bodies, the bloodless inferi kept on marching. Despairing, Harry stood straight and in what he thought would be his last stand, decided to cast the blasting hex. "BOM-"

Before he could complete it, however, the inferi stopped their march unexpectedly. Their sudden halt caused Harry to drop the half-formed hex, shocked. The inferi seemed to stare at him - or was it behind him? - with their lifeless eyes. And an instant later, they _turned away_ from him, back towards the lake! One by one, they reentered the black water, and very soon - _unnaturally_ soon - the cave once again became absolutely motionless and silent.

Instead of feeling relieved, however, Harry could feel deep within his bones that the cave had just become infinitely more dangerous now _._

Behind him, he felt Dumbledore stir and then stand, shaking badly. But instead of feeling hopeful, Harry found that his sense of unease grew with every passing moment. Somewhat hysterically he began explaining the situation. "Sir there are inferi in the lake! They attacked after I picked up water for you... I couldn't fill the cup with Aguamenti and had to take water from the lake even though you had warned not to touch it, but I -" 

"Harry, why did the inferi return to the lake?" Dumbledore interrupted Harry's frantic ramble with the one question Harry had no answer for. 

And then, at the _other_ end of the cave flickered a sudden, macabre red light. Dumbledore turned towards it. And his ancient face became _white_ with fear.

Harry himself thought he couldn't even breathe - such was the suffocating effect of sheer fear that seemed to emanate from the red light. "S-sir? W-what is that?" He managed to speak.

"Harry we must leave this place immediately," said Dumbledore as he ran towards the basin with surprising agility for an old and recently poisoned man. He grabbed the locket, and along with Harry, started running for the small boat.

The boat that suddenly _withered away_ , right in front of their eyes. So thick the air was with horror though, that in spite of seeing their only way of escape mysteriously vanish in thin air, the duo couldn't even manage a gasp.

Both Gryffindors instinctively knew that whatever was causing the unholy red glow had done this. Both of them also instinctively knew that there was no escaping the horror now - the only way forward was to confront it.

Just as the headmaster and his pupil grew rigid with pure terror emanating from the now visible silhouette of the winged menace, black as the very bowels of hell and clad in red flames, they also instinctively knew that facing them was a horror beyond what mortals could ever concoct.

As the Balrog of Morgoth walked slowly towards the edge of the lake, the headmaster could feel his wand, a gift from Mandos (though he had no way of knowing that), _hiss_ with fury in the presence of the ancient enemy.


	2. The Valarukar

Only those with a sufficient stature could ever hope to defeat it. The fiery demon had known this for a long time. 

It had known that even as along with its brethren it had battled Ungoliant to rescue their master. But for their number, the mighty spider would have slain them all and taken their master a prisoner for eternity, or until he surrendered the jewels of light.

It had known that as it had watched the battle between its lord, the mighty Gothmog, and the maker of the jewels of light. It had known that _that_ was a battle between equals, that it had been luck that had swung the fight in favor of its lord.

It had known that even as it had seen the mightiest of its master's creation, the dragon Ancalagon the Black, being slain by those of lesser stature. Dragons were no Balrogs, and it _was_ possible for the lesser to slay them through trickery or through numbers. Such a thing was not possible with Balrogs, for they were originally the Creator's children, whose gift had bestowed themselves in such a form for their race. It had known this, even as it had fled Angband to the remotest pit it could find, for on its heels was the Hunter on his mighty steed Nahar. It had abandoned its master that day to face judgment, knowing to itself that it would never again see him.

It had known that as it had slain many a dwarf and elf warrior with impunity as it resided within its new abode, the Mines of Moria. For all of them lacked the stature to defeat him, even Durin of the line of Durin the Deathless. It had known about its relative invulnerability, even as it had felt the world change and Valinor move away as per the Creator's will.

It had known that even as it had challenged the Maia carrying the sword of Gondolin, having perceived his presence through a door. Because a small creature in his company was carrying something that belonged to Mairon. It had known through the orcs that Mairon was still present in Arda, and it would have assisted the lieutenant of Melkor by returning his artifact and aiding him as he sought dominion over the Creator's Free People. It had known that the staff-wielding Maia could have killed it, for he certainly was of the stature to do so. And yet it was a warrior of Melkor, and had challenged the Maia instead of fleeing away from the battle that could have been its doom.

And what a battle had it been! The Maia had conjectured its intent of seizing Mairon's artifact and escaping the mines to aid him very early in the battle, and had therefore forbidden it to cross the bridge and go into open. It had resisted defiantly; attacking and dragging the Maia with itself even as it fell into the abyss that was spanned by the bridge the Maia had broken to stall it. Great was the might of its foe and bitter was his sword, and even as it fled from his wrath, he pursued it from the lowest dungeon to the highest peak of the mountain. Thereupon a long and mighty battle had ensued, and for a moment there was naught but the clash of lightning and fire. It had felt the eye of many an Aratar upon the battle then, especially of their chieftain who watched from the pinnacle of Taniquetil. The battle ended as it delivered a mighty blow to its foe, just as it received his full power upon its chest and fell upon the mountainside, smiting it in its ruin.

It was grievously injured from the battle but lived on even as it felt it was given one last flame. Upon its recovery from the injuries it managed to return to the pit, to the very foundations of stone, where it remained as eons passed and the Creator once again reshaped the world. It remained there, gnawing at the world in its malice, and true to the purpose of the Valarukar as intended by their one and only master Melkor, waiting to strike at the enemies of the dark.

Until, at last, it perceived movement at the other end, as a mortal necromancer made the cave at the end of the stair into his lair. The demon saw the mortal as a servant of the dark and did not intervene, continuing its long slumber.

The slumber that continued, until a short while later, it was broken violently by the presence of two true enemies of the dark. The fiery demon perceived their arrival in its abode as the roar of Ancalagon, as a challenge by the Hunter himself, blowing the mighty Valaroma. Both enemies were mortals, and yet it had never imagined seeing _such_ mortals. For one of them, the elder one, wielded a weapon wrought by Mandos and had befriended a creature of light; the other, a mortal _child_ , wielded a touch of the _secret fire itself_. Both had the stature defeat it, even individually; even as the demon set forth to challenge them, for it knew that its victory over these enemies would be the greatest victory of the Valarukar over the enemies of the dark, ever.

It stretched its wings and drew its fiery whip and sword and marched towards the island in the middle of the lake.

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A/N 1: Hope u enjoyed it. Wanted to limit the overall story within 3k words and 2 chapters, but looks like it'll go beyond.

A/N 2: Valarukar = Balrogs, Mairon is Sauron's original name.


	3. The battle - 1

_"When subject to truly extreme psychic attacks or severe trauma, an untrained wizard's magic may force his consciousness into undergoing 'Isolation Through Replication', or ITR, as you should know from chapter 3 of the book I gave you. Of course, with you being our star celebrity, I can safely assume that you haven't as much touched_ _that book. So let me simplify it for you, Potter - if you ever feel that you are simultaneously controlling your body and remotely observing it at the same time, you can reliably conclude that you have been subject to said extreme psychic attack. It is supposed to be the best defense possible against any mental attack, but gets triggered against only the most extreme kinds of mental attacks. And no, Potter, that definition does not include the dark lord's legilimency attacks, nor his imperio, even when both are preceded by a cruciatus. To the best of my knowledge, no one alive has encountered the mechanism ever getting triggered, nor is it documented anywhere what actually can be considered as an attack extreme enough to trigger ITR, so the defense is practically useless. Another of its weakness is that one naturally loses this innate ability upon undertaking the study of Occlumency. Or I should say, if one actually learns Occlumency, and since that is clearly never going to happen in your case, I am happy to announce that you will be retaining this innate defense mechanism for the rest of your celebrity life..."_

Harry had no idea why he was remembering Snape of all people _now_ , but he was. That at least fit his situation - he couldn't remember feeling this terrified of anything, and then the next moment that fear had receded somewhat, and he was now _both_ controlling his movements and observing himself do the movements. That was the good part of it.

Nothing other than that was looking good. The _monster_ \- for it couldn't be anything else, nobody in the world could have the power to create an impossibly large dark fiery demon - was marching towards them. Dumbledore stood beside him, transfixed with his glasses askew, and grasping his wand so hard his hand was shaking because of the grip. Harry couldn't remove his gaze too long from the monster - it was automatically drawn to it, as though it demanded his attention.

The monster - a flaming amber silhouette with amber eyes and amber nostrils - approached the inner edge of the lake and drew himself fully, impossibly tall. Harry wondered if the cave was actually this tall _before_. It looked at them intently, raised his fiery sword and struck. When it was almost too late to jump to move out of the way, Harry jumped. Beside him, he felt Dumbledore leaping at that exact same moment.

As he dived away from the sword, he expected to hear an almighty crash as it collided with the solid stone basin, and then getting showered with pieces of rock. None of that happened - absolute silence reigned in the cave, and there was no rock shower. The silence stretched oppressively for what felt like _years_ , but what in reality must have been less than a moment. Harry managed to shake his fear and look at what should have been the site of the crash.

The indestructible solid stone basin had been cleanly cloven in two. So was the island underneath it - the earth itself was cut, with an extraordinarily fine cut. The demon's fiery sword had cut _everything_ that was in its way. Harry felt the terror he felt became a hundredfold stronger. The monster was playing with them, exhibiting its full powers, cowing them into submission. 'Now that slice's something to measure your _Diffindo_ skills against', Harry thought to himself, almost losing sanity. He and Dumbledore were now on two different islands, freshly cut from the original one. Dumbledore - Harry's only hope of survival - had also stood up. And he was finally moving. Harry felt something akin to relief at the sight.

Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, with a look of absolute fright upon his ancient face, stretched his wand arm and fired a green spell at the monster through the weapon wrought by Mandos.

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Harry mind - already undergoing 'Isolation through replication' - now experienced a combined _simultaneous_ occurrence of a truly extreme psychic attack and severe trauma, and that instantly repelled the feeling of oppressive demonic fear. And yet Harry could not understand what was happening - or what _the fucking fuck_ was happening, as Ron would say. That spell - that _green, green_ spell - was the ultimate murder weapon that he never imagined Dumbledore was capable of casting. Dumbledore, fountain of knowledge, their gentle and immensely respected headmaster who had toyed with Voldemort last year with powerful but non killing spells - that Dumbledore - had _begun_ the fight with the Avada the Murder Spell. Harry was in shock. Harry felt betrayed. Harry felt something truly valuable in his world - Professor Dumbledore's unshakable stance on what was right and what was not - shatter. His eyes continued to observe though, and his mind continued to process.

The green beam struck the monster square in chest, and as soon as it did, its amber silhouette vanished. Only its two amber eyes remained, still moving, still deadly, still terrifying. And then even that light vanished. But the monster was still there, as deadly as ever. The Avada had failed to kill - twice now, just in two decades, really not that reliable a spell, Harry thought hysterically - and the monster still lived.

Then the amber in its eyes also vanished, and an all consuming darkness fell over in the cave. So complete it was that Harry forgot what light felt like. But then he suddenly remembered - not what light felt like, no - but that he _knew this darkness_. _Intimately_. This was the darkness that greeted him when the Dursleys used to lock him in his cupboard. This darkness - accompanied by that same feeling of absolute hopelessness - was what Harry had grown up with. This was the darkness he was used to since he was four. This darkness had taught him that it made no difference if one closed his eyes, because the night was always as dark, that there was never any difference. He had slept in this darkness. He had spent countless nights _not sleeping_ in his darkness, imagining the next day being _exactly the same as any other day_ , when he would work all day long only to be shouted at and ignored. 

Around him, Harry felt Dumbledore scrambling to fire Avadas everywhere in hopes of catching the monster. Oh, and attempting to cast lumos, which Harry knew was going to be useless. When an Avatar-of-fear, ancient monster attacks with darkness as his weapon, you can't really hope to negate it with a lumos. But that did not mean that you _couldn't_ retaliate, no, of course you could. The monster thinks he can wield darkness against _him_? Against Harry Potter, for whom darkness was the one friend that gave him the opportunity to dream that he wasn't an unloved, skinny boy with no future - _that darkness?_

All of a sudden, Harry felt an enormous pressure of raw sorrow. The fact that he had experienced the darkness that _a fiery monster that was fear incarnate and carried a sword that cut through anything and scared inferi away_ considered a _weapon_ at the Dursleys - in their pristine, ultraclean, ultraneat home - was nothing but enormously despairing. For that meant that the Dursleys were capable of horrors beyond what a true _monster_ could unleash. And at his right, Professor Dumbldore's aura of infallibility, his _good nature_ , and the feeling that _they were the good because they refused to make use of murder weapons_ , was blasted into smithereens by his rapid-fire green shots. Harry wanted to lie down and cry and ignore the world.

So, of course, he gripped his wand, and like the born seeker that he was, began to search for his target that happened to be a monster instead of a Snitch, even when no sensory clue was available.

With a determined face - that resembled young Harry's face when he decided to treat new day as truly a new day and do his best and hope for non indifference from his family and from everyone else - Harry Potter moved.

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Location: Neither here nor there, nor anywhere

Time: Neither now nor then, nor ever

The One Who Arises In Might suddenly opened his eyes, and just like that, he was here, now. _Outside of the void_.

He smiled.

'So the touched afterborn finally discovered that it was the afterborn themselves that were the beings of ultimate evil', he mused.

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So began what would be the last leg of the first music. 

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A/N 1: Next up: Dumbledore's POV

A/N 2: Hope you enjoyed it! Sorry for the looong delay, but I lost my job in June, and the months in between were rough. Will hopefully update this soon.


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